Thursday, 3 June 2010

.There's unfortunately a long list of tragic accidents that have happened through a simple lack of care or the use of self serving logic.

One such recent tragedy was in NSW where an 8 year old girl drowned at a swimming carnival. The teachers there were supposed to be supervising and there were some lifeguards there as well whose duties also included manning the pools canteen at the time.

If they are manning the canteen they aren't lifeguards, they're only lifeguards when they are they are watching over the people in the pool and doing nothing else. And I do not believe teachers receive lifeguard training so they aren't lifeguards either and therefore not qualified to supervise large numbers of children in a pool.

There's no real excuse for many of the tragedies that happen because we have all of human experience to draw upon to tell us what we should and shouldn't do.

Unfortunately other tragedies have happened and keep happening because some people will ignore the absolute basics that will prevent mishaps because they end up ignoring certain established safety guidelines or using self serving logic to justify to themselves unsafe behaviour.

Here’s a few of those attitudes and the reality of what can happen if these attitudes are adopted.

“It’s only for a second” as in a door that should be shut being open or children left unsupervised.

It’s not for a second, it’s always for a longer period. The only thing that takes a second is a child getting into some sort of trouble.“It’s unlikely to happen” as in a particular type accident, bad situation or an abduction.This “unlikely to happen” appears to be translated into “It can’t happen” because the “unlikely to happen” attitude is used to justify behaviour that undermines safe practices. Then what is unlikely to happen does actually happen.“It hasn’t happened yet”, also as in a particular type accident, bad situation or an abduction. The “It hasn’t happened” attitude is also used to justify behaviour that undermines safe practices. Then what hasn’t happened actually does happen it is too late to take the measures to stop it happening to begin with.

Be safe and be realistic, it really takes very little effort and can save a lot of grief..

Friday, 16 April 2010

.Anna Bligh has brought the daylight savings issue back into limelight. It’s something of a contentious issue in Queensland and not without good reason. Apparently the South East wants it and the rest of the state doesn’t so to keep the situation simple(?) the government wants to split the state into two time zones.

It's been a hot topic in Western Australia as well, it looks like they won't adopt daylight saving but in their case it doesn’t matter too much as it’s a single state in its time zone, Queensland is in the same time zone as New South Wales and Victoria and apparently the different times are causing problems for interstate business. That said wouldn’t that mean that business between the eastern states and the rest of Australia would have the same problem?

To have the eastern states in the same time zone could be a good argument for having daylight saving in Queensland, the argument against based on complaints that it will cause problems to farming routines could be easily dealt with as well.

Friday, 12 March 2010

MATTHEW MOORE URBAN AFFAIRS EDITOR March 12, 2010THE state government is rushing to prepare laws to create a development authority with sweeping powers to compulsorily acquire and rezone privately owned land for resale to developers.

With Sydney's population set to grow 40 per cent to 6 million in the next 25 years, the government has decided it needs a metropolitan development authority to buy privately owned land near rail and bus routes for medium- and high-density housing.

Legislation for the new authority, believed to be the first of its kind in Australia, will be introduced before June in an attempt to increase housing construction rates, which are the lowest on record even though the city's population is growing at the fastest rate since the 1960s.

Stephen Albin, the chief executive of the Urban Development Institute, a developer group, said while landowners should receive some compensation for increased value from rezoning, they should not receive it all.

''Developers are taking the risk … these landowners are not taking risk. Government has decided for the good of the city, for the good of the community, development must occur.”

Someone can own something but he thinks they have to get less than is fair for it so someone else can make a profit from it.

Developers are taking the risk? Of course they are, that's how capitalism works, if they want the profit they take the risk. It's not down to private land owners to subsidise someone else’s enterprise.

These landowners are not taking risk? Well why would they? They didn't ask to be part of the venture.

The rationale behind the authority and the compulsory acquisition provision is community benefit?

Something that is for the benefit of the community is usually paid for by the community, not just a few of its members, in this case private land owners.

It's the same as acquiring land for a road or a railway?

No it's not, it appears it's mainly for the benefit of a developers profit.

People don’t buy homes so developers can benefit.

Taking someone’s land should only be for a genuine benefit to the common good such as when they built the Harbour Bridge or if the army urgently needs land during war time and the owners involved should be compensated fairly for the inconvenience such a venture places upon them. Such decisions shouldn’t be taken lightly and it should not be done just so someone else can profit.

Whether or not the housing developments can be considered for the greater good is debatable, one thing is certain and that is a developers profit is not for the common good and that profit is no one else’s responsibility but their own.

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Welcome to World Central, an independent page presenting straightforward news, views and attitudes. Looking for what's right as opposed to just looking right and presenting the facts, not the fantasy and certainly not the ideology. This page is not designed to offend, the intent is to find the facts and present them to the world.The opinions expressed here are the editor’s and do not represent any other persons, company, organisation etc. The opinions posted in the comments section are the opinion of the person posting them.